


Better Late Than Never

by WizardLogic



Category: Song Of The Lioness, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: F/M, Gen, trans headcanons by trans author
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-17
Updated: 2020-01-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:08:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22286116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WizardLogic/pseuds/WizardLogic
Summary: Stealth trans Sir Myles thinks about The Plot, with a gradual morphing of sadness to fluff. Okay, mostly fluff. Anyway. Theoretically canon compliant.
Relationships: Sir Myles x Eleni Cooper
Comments: 9
Kudos: 26





	Better Late Than Never

**Author's Note:**

> I did a tumblr post about this once. This is that, polished into a fic, in honor of genderfluid Alanna. Expecting 2-3 chapters only.

He’s been keeping the secret for decades by the time it happens. This scrawny little page arrives, and Myles suspects but within a month he’s totally sure. How long has it been since he was a page himself? Twenty years? Thirty? Sixty? Someone else has finally taken the chance. 

He wants to help, any way he can. He would’ve done about anything at Alan’s age to know that there were other people like himself, but Myles can’t tell him yet— Myles himself is not out of the woods yet, and never will be. He doesn’t believe Alan would out him on purpose, but after so long he can’t take even the smallest risk. Risk that Alan will let something slip. That Alan could be caught and in a moment of desperation try to justify himself with precedent. 

No, best to be subtle in cases like this— and so it’s time to behave like a spy. He diverts suspicion in little ways, when he can. He quietly rights inconsistencies in Alan’s paperwork. Makes excuses for Alan’s quirks of character, for his small size and forever youthful face. He doesn’t mention, but he knows. He reaches out to Alan. He gets to know him, and it doesn’t take long before he develops a genuine fondness for the boy. Alan so determined, so powerfully sure of his path. He has his own strong sense of right and wrong and a bulldog’s grip on it. He’s fiery, but in the end the deepest part of his nature is kindness. His stubbornness is enough to give an old man hope that as hard as the road has been, someone may yet claw a decent living from it.

And then the sweating sickness comes, and the prince falls ill, and his dearest friend among the other squires makes an attempt to save him. And Myles witnesses a miracle. A squire calls on gods and the gods answer, and one mortal soul calls out to another, to call it back from the edge of death. 

Jon’s voice sounds like his father’s. The man, the king he will become, answers the call, and the fever breaks. 

But Alan’s voice...

No, Alanna’s voice. The voice that belongs not just to her body but the voice of what she IS. There’s really no doubt about it, once he hears that voice. Myles had made an assumption, an informed one but a wrong one nevertheless. 

And it doesn’t change anything. How could it? How could it ever? She is still the terrible, wonderful, stubborn child he has come to wish the best for. He still loves her terribly, and he always will, and that’s how it is. The person that voice belongs to, the brave, powerful woman that she will become, his eventual daughter, his adopted heir, she’s going to change the world forever, even if it means she has to fight the whole thing by herself. How could he be anything but achingly proud of her?

But even when she finally confides in him, he doesn’t confide in her. He never will. Both of them will live and die and she will never know. Dressing as a boy was a means to an end for Alanna. She needs the world to know who she is, she deserves to have the life she’s wanted and worked for. But, he knows her far too well to share his secret with her now. She’ll never really understand, and she’s too stubborn to ever really accept that the situation was different for him than it ever was for her. 

Sir Myles loves his daughter. He’s too decent to be disappointed that she’s not his son. Really. He’s had a long time to get used to feeling like an anomaly. But, maybe he’s a little disappointed in himself. He was a little too invested in that small hope that he wasn’t alone any longer. That’s not her fault, not her burden. She has more than enough of her own already. She doesn’t need to know. 

When he makes her his heir, he also puts a request in his will, unexplained but quite emphatic, that he be buried in whatever clothes he dies in, that his body is not to be undressed even to prepare it for burial. It’s as much as he can hope for to take it to his grave. 

And then he meets Eleni Cooper, and little by little it all falls apart.

**Author's Note:**

> Alanna isn't a lot of things that people expect her to be. Myles has always loved her for it.
> 
> This is going to be pretty much that post, because I thought about this version for a long time, but I wrote that last year and now that we have canon nb Alanna I kinda want to do an alternate ending where they like. Actually talk about some stuff. That might have to be its own thing though.


End file.
